Rod ScherSecureData SecureDrive BT SSDSecureData's costly SecureDrive BT SSD is not quite a speedster for an external SSD, but it offers serious security, including an impenetrable interior and the ability to kill the drive remotely.

Pricey. No USB-C or other adapters. Below-average performance for an external SSD.

Bottom Line

SecureData's costly SecureDrive BT SSD is not quite a speedster for an external SSD, but it offers serious security, including an impenetrable interior and the ability to kill the drive remotely.

Most of us look for two things in an external drive: speed and affordability. If those are your main criteria, the SecureDrive BT SSD from SecureData is not for you. This Bluetooth-controlled solid-state drive (we looked at the $499 1TB model) is no speed demon and is expensive by any measure, but it's also no ordinary external SSD. Think of it as a small safe for your data...with an intriguing remote-kill switch. It won't go up in smoke like a Mission: Impossible prop, but corporate, institutional, and other security-conscious users will find it a relief to entrust their super-sensitive bits to it. Compliant with HIPAA (key for medical data), GDPR (the EU's General Data Protection Regulation), FIPS (a key sticking point for armed-services vendors), and other security protocols, the SecureDrive BT will keep your critical data safe and conveniently accessible.

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Your Data on Lockdown

The 1TB model I have on hand for testing lists for $499, which works out to a hefty 50 cents per gigabyte of storage. The 2TB model runs $839.99, or about 42 cents per gig. The company offers the BT SSD model in several more capacities, ranging from 250GB to 8TB, but watch out for sticker shock, especially at the extremes: The top-end 8TB model will set you back a mind-blowing $3,299. SecureData also offers cheaper versions with platter hard drives inside. (A 1TB platter version, for example, rings up at $259.)

The robust aluminum chassis of the drive itself is good-looking and hefty, measuring 0.5 inch thick and 3 by 5 inches, and weighing in at about 9 ounces. The unit ships with an ordinary USB Type-A cable, and it is compatible with Windows, iOS, macOS, Android, Linux, and Chrome. (The company also includes a one-year subscription to ESET's DriveSecurity Antivirus.) While the drive itself is completely OS-independent, it comes without any additional connectors, cables, or dongles, so you may need adapters to use the drive with Lightning, USB Type-C, and other such interfaces. (By default, the drive comes formatted in NTFS, but you can reformat it in exFAT or some other format, if you choose.)

The royal-blue enclosure feels solid in hand, with LEDs at the top to indicate whether it's currently locked (red), unlocked (green), or transferring data (blue). It's not ruggedized or waterproof, but my test unit being a solid-state device makes it, to a great extent, immune to many of the mechanical issues that might befall a platter-based external drive, especially if it is dropped or knocked about.

Security, and More Security

The SecureDrive BT is all about peace of mind, and SecureData has baked in more layers of security than you'd think possible for a mobile drive.

First, all drive data is encrypted at rest using XTS-AES 256-bit hardware encryption. Simply put, there is very little risk of anything (or anyone) being able to crack that level of encryption—it's a mil-spec standard that is simply not subject to any remotely reasonable form of brute-force hacking. (Not that it couldn't theoretically be done, but it would take multiple computers many thousands of years to crack a 256-bit encryption scheme. You'd better have something really juicy on there to be worth the effort.)

In addition, you unlock and configure the drive not by switches or keypresses on the unit itself, nor through commands sent via your (potentially compromised) computer, but via a Bluetooth app running on your Android or Apple smartphone. The app uses multi-factor authentication that can be as complex as you like, though most users can settle for a password and the original unit-specific ID number. The drive can also be set to lock after a set period of time elapses, and—crucially—it can make use of a "proximity lock" that automatically locks down the drive when you (and your smartphone or other device) step away from the drive.

Setting up the security system is simple enough. First, you plug the drive into a USB port, preferably USB 3 of some kind. (USB 2.0 ports will work, but the transfer speeds will be much reduced, this being an SSD.) Then, download the DataLock app from the Android or Apple store as appropriate, and pair up the SecureDrive BT using the app and the Bluetooth receiver in the drive. (One thing to note when hunting for the app on the stores: Do not accidentally download SorroSoft's Data Lock app; you want the DataLock app by ClevX.) Also, keep in mind that your computer or other device does not need to have Bluetooth active, since the only Bluetooth communication is taking place between your phone and the drive itself.

If this is your first time connecting the drive to your phone, you'll be asked to enter the drive's specific eight-digit unit ID number (located near the USB connector), then create a password. You can pair multiple devices to the drive, so if you change, break, or lose your phone, you can still have access to your data. From now on, though, that password you set via the app will be required to unlock the drive. You can lose your phone, but do not lose that password. If you do, there is no way to access the data on that drive. You can reset the drive, but all your data will be lost.

Note that a startup guide, a user manual, and other handy materials are available on the drive, but you can't get to the drive until you pair with it, then unlock it, using the DataLock app. For that reason, the drive comes with a sticker on the back that outlines the three steps you'll need to follow to unlock the drive after downloading the app. That's a prerequisite to doing anything else.

More Security: Sheathing and Remote Wipes

The security aspects of this drive don't end there. The SecureDrive BT SSD is compliant with FIPS 140-2 Level 3, a set of federal standards that describe security protocols for use by government contractors and vendors. Among other things, FIPS requires that steps be taken to protect not just the data stored on the drive, but the hardware itself. In this case, that mandate is met by encasing the SecureDrive BT's internal components (the bits inside the chassis) in a sheath of epoxy meant to preclude tampering with the guts. The epoxy guarantees that it's impossible to disassemble and reverse-engineer the unit (getting to the chips themselves will destroy them), or to gain access to the drive's contents.

Another key security-related feature allows the user to remotely wipe a lost or stolen drive. Because these units are so small and so light, they're easily (and often) lost or stolen, so the ability to remotely wipe an errant drive is an important advantage for security-conscious users.

In addition, you can opt to sign up for a remote-management license ($24.95 per drive per year) that's available with your SecureData BT. This is an excellent option for corporate or institutional IT folks, who can then control, set, support, and deploy multiple SecureDrives.

Here's how the remote-wipe feature works. First, you'll need to enable the Remote Wipe function in the smartphone (or tablet) app, under Settings.

From that point on, you'll need Internet connectivity to unlock your drive. (Ordinarily, you wouldn't need that, since the app connects with—and locks or unlocks—the drive via Bluetooth. Now, though, the Internet will be used to lock, unlock, and wipe your SecureDrive BT.)

Once the Remote Wipe feature has been enabled, you can execute the wipe via the app. A signal will be sent to the SecureData server, and once someone connects to the drive, the wipe signal is communicated from the server to the (new) user's mobile device. Note that if the thief never connects to the Internet, the drive cannot be erased, but he or she can't access the drive, either, since that connectivity is now required in order to unlock the drive. (This means that if the drive is lost, it also won't be erased until someone attempts to use it.)

Be careful using the Remote Wipe function. If you happen to lose, remote-wipe, and then find your drive, you will not be able to recover the contents of the drive, and your data will be lost. (You can reformat and reuse the drive, but there's no way to recover the original data.)

A Tradeoff: Excellent Security, Modest Speed

As we noted earlier, this is not the fastest SSD around. Some of this sluggishness may be due to the encryption and decryption that must take place during read/write operations. But the SecureData BT SSD, while slower than other SSDs we've tested, is still faster than portable platter-based drives and is eminently usable. (As far as throughput speed goes, it's important for Windows 10 users to note that, due to recent changes in the way Windows 10 configures unmounting of USB devices, it may be possible to increase the performance of the SecureData BT—or any other USB device—by changing the policy setting to "Better performance" rather than leaving it at the new "Quick removal" default. You can find instructions on how to make that change here.)

We used CrystalDiskMark to get a handle on the SecureDrive BT's typical read and write speeds. As you can see from the results, the drive handily outperformed the recently reviewed Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch and the late-2016 WD My Passport drives. (Those are platter-based units, not external SSDs.)

In our tests, the SecureData BT delivered sequential read speeds of 277MBps and write speeds of 266MBps. Again, nothing to write home about (most external USB-interface SSDs PC Labs has tested in recent years top out in the high 400s), but still faster than platter-based drives.

In our PCMark 7 Secondary Storage testing, the SecureDrive BT outperformed the two platter-based drives, but it fell well short of the results generated by the ADATA SE730H, the SanDisk Extreme Portable, and the WD My Passport SSD, all three of these being external SSDs.

SecureData rates the typical throughput for this drive at about 289MBps, with occasional speeds in excess of 350MBps, depending on your system's configuration. After running multiple tests on multiple systems, we found that the rated speed was in rough accordance with our results.

Slow, Spendy, Secure

If security is your main concern—and if you are a corporate, military, or institutional user, storing critical, confidential data, it should be—this is the drive for you.

The drive is significantly more expensive than other solid-state drives of similar capacities, but it offers the sort of peace of mind that, depending on your environment and the type of data you're storing, may be well worth the price. And that—price—is our big sticking point: Given the cost per gig, we'll just assume that you're in the position to have a flush budget with someone else footing the bill.

SecureData SecureDrive BT SSD

Bottom Line: SecureData's costly SecureDrive BT SSD is not quite a speedster for an external SSD, but it offers serious security, including an impenetrable interior and the ability to kill the drive remotely.

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About the Author

Rod Scher is a former director of technology of Cliffs Notes and several other companies, and is a retired teacher and software developer. For many years, he was the editor of Smart Computing Magazine. He is the author or annotator of several books, including Leveling the Playing Field: The Democratization of Technology. Scher spends much of his ti... See Full Bio

SecureData SecureDrive BT SSD

SecureData SecureDrive BT SSD

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